‘Uprooted’ Panel Discussion at JANM

A panel discussion will be held in conjunction with the exhibition “Uprooted: Japanese American Farm Labor Camps During World War II” on Saturday, Dec. 17, at 2 p.m. at the Japanese Amercan National Museum, 100 N. Central Ave. in Little Tokyo.

Exhibition curator Morgen Young will moderate a discussion with Nisei who will provide first-hand accounts of living and working in the farm labor camps. Young will also provide insights into the creation of the farm labor program, the national need for sugar beet labor, and Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographer Russell Lee, whose documentation of four camps (near Nyssa, Ore., and Rupert, Shelley and Twin Falls, Idaho) is featured in “Uprooted.”

Young will also conduct a members-only exhibition tour on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. RSVP to [email protected] or (213) 830-5646. “Uprooted” closes on Jan. 8.

Between 1942 and 1944, thousands of incarcerated Japanese Americans were moved from assembly centers and concentration camps to farm labor camps as a way to mitigate the wartime labor shortage. Some 33,000 individual contracts were issued for seasonal farm labor, with many Japanese Americans assigned to work in the sugar beet industry, which played a vital role in producing munitions for the military. Under this seasonal leave program, Japanese Americans could earn better wages while contributing to the war effort.

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The Rafu Shimpo has been the nation's leading Japanese American newspaper since its original publication. We are proud to have served the Japanese American community from our Little Tokyo office in Downtown Los Angeles since 1903.